A methodology of using scaling factors to determine the force capabilities of non-redundantly and redundantly-actuated parallel manipulators is presented. This methodology allows the actuator limits to be easily incorporated into the problem of determining force capabilities of parallel manipulators. Analytical methods for determining the force capabilities of both non-redundantly and redundantly-actuated manipulators using scaling factors are derived. In addition, an optimization-based method for generating force capabilities is presented. The results show that using redundant actuation allows for a significant improvement in the force capabilities of parallel manipulators. The results also show that using the optimization-based solution makes better use of the maximum torque/force capabilities of the actuators when compared to the non-redundantly-actuated and the pseudo-inverse solutions.
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